AL-State-Alabama Department of Mental Health receives $750K Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Alabama mobile crisis response collaborative - the Alabama mobile crisis response collaborative (al‑mcrc) will establish and enhance mobile crisis teams (mcts) for children, youth, and adults across butler, calhoun, cleburn, coffee, covington, and crenshaw counties, expanding behavioral‑health crisis response where no mcts currently exist in two counties and only limited adult services are available in the others. Services will be available to individuals of all ages experiencing mental health or substance use crises. The project will strengthen Alabama’s crisis continuum through implementation plans, formalized partnerships, training plans, crisis‑system mapping, continuous quality improvement (cqi), and sustainability planning. Al‑mcrc will increase timely access to person‑centered mobile crisis care by diverting behavioral‑health crises from 911 to the behavioral‑health crisis system; increasing referrals from 988; expanding safe community resolution without emergency departments or law enforcement; meeting national response‑time standards for urban and rural areas; and implementing standardized cqi using kpis, satisfaction data, and outcomes. The collaborative will expand mct capacity by establishing and enhancing evidence‑based adult/child/youth teams at HHS and scamhb, increasing annual in‑person responses, and ensuring warm handoffs to ongoing care within 72 hours. To build sustainable statewide infrastructure, al‑mcrc will develop a coordinated, data‑informed crisis plan; implement standardized mct fidelity measures; improve the statewide training curriculum; disseminate enhanced modules; develop a mobile crisis team implementation toolkit; and complete a statewide technology gap analysis with an implementation plan.